This task force will focus on engaging with and elaborating
Governor Gregoire's development strategy titled 'The Next Washington.' Her
strategy is based on six assumptions: 1) Washington performs on a global
economic stage, 2) government should build infrastructure for the private
sector, 3) sometimes government's primary role is to step aside, 4) government
should invest directly in some sectors, 5) jobs and the environment are not in a
zero-sum relationship and 6) education is the single most important economic
investment we can make. We will evaluate these assumptions, perhaps make
recommendations for changes to them and identify pragmatic, politically feasible
means for realizing this ambitious development strategy.

SIS 495B Ellison Current Issues in
U.S.-Russian Relations

This TF will get an overview of world regions and problems
on which U.S.-Russian relations currently are focused and will provide an
opportunity to study a major question as your writing project. You also will
learn a great deal about other aspects of current U.S.-Russian relations from
reading and participating in discussion of other students’ papers. A useful
method of preparation for the TF is to examine the Report from Prof. Ellison’s
2006 Task Force; it can be seen in the JSIS Student Services Office.

We are a task force commissioned by the World Bank to
assess how China’s economic development should inform World Bank policy on
promoting economic development. The report is designed to give background
information and to provide recommendation for future policies. The goal of the
course is to develop a report that is broad enough for everyone to write a
chapter incorporating original research, and yet focused enough to allow for the
development of a narrative centered on core themes. The report should not get
tangled up in minutiae about China, although one or more chapters should spell
out the details of development in China. Rather, the report should provide a
broad historical understanding of global economic development and international
trade, a concrete understanding of current conditions, and a clear set of policy
options that flow from the previous analysis.

This Task Force is charged to review the current state of
knowledge, debate, and policy-making on humanitarian relief provision in complex
emergencies. Its report should provide a broad overview of contemporary
responses to complex emergencies and conduct a specific analysis of the emergent
trends in South Asia (Pakistan and Kashmir) after the 2005 earthquake.
Specifically, the report should provide recommendations on questions about
international humanitarian aid implementation such as: Should humanitarian
agencies ever work with or through national militaries? What are the best
material forms of relief and rehabilitation aid in complex humanitarian
emergencies? Should aid agencies work primarily through governmental
institutions or civil society organizations? How should aid agencies select
local partners for service delivery? Should international aid organizations
undertake to direct or coordinate civil society philanthropic activity? Should
aid interventions seek to implement development goals or policies? By examining
such questions, Task Force members will develop recommendations regarding ways
national governments and international agencies can best work together to
provide relief during complex emergencies. The TF will present its report to an
international humanitarian aid agency.

Controversy continues to
surround the topic, yet the scientific consensus is now very strong that humans
are significantly responsible for determining the direction and extent of change
in the Earth’s climate. Due to the nature of this influence—tied directly to
energy use, agricultural practices, and other socially penetrative realities—and
the implications of what must be done to mitigate it, the subject is a highly
politicized one. Debate over global warming is immediately linked to debate over
energy (and therefore national) security, foreign policy, economic growth, life
style, and, in much of the industrializing world, development itself. This Task
Force will examine the current state of knowledge, debate, and policy-making
relevant to climate change and will try to determine the best course for the
U.S. Among the questions to be addressed: What is the basic evidence for global
warming and what changes are predicted to occur, with what effects in advanced
and developing nations? What forms of mitigation are being proposed, with what
economic and social consequences? How are different governments and industries
responding, and in what ways? Are there any prospects for an improved global
agreement? How has the issue been represented to the American public, and to
what effect? By examining such questions, Task Force members will develop a
realistic understanding of climate change, as both a physical and a
socio-political phenomenon, and develop recommendations for future U.S. policy.

SIS 495F Soverel
US National Security Strategy – War on Terror

This Task Force is responsible for determining U.S.
interests in the context of the current global security environment and devising
a national strategy for protecting/securing those interests, including
especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terrorism. Even though the US
possesses military capacities which far exceed those of any other state, perhaps
any combination of states, it has found it difficult to convert these military
advantages into lasting political realities especially in the Middle East/South
Asia and North Korea. The current US forward leaning, pre-emptive,
foreign/defense policy and demonstrated American willingness to use military
force (Afghanistan and Iraq) have far-reaching global as well as profound
domestic implications. Stabilizing the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and
devising strategies to prevent or contain Iranian/North Korean nuclear ambitions
dominate the American foreign policy apparatus and domestic political agenda.
Solving these related issues -- i.e. developing a global national security
strategy to protect American and its interests -- will be your task during this
task force.

SIS 495G Huber R Congress and U.S.
Foreign Policy

Students will gather first hand, practical experience in
preparing a Statement of Policy (SOP), the President's official statement sent
to the Congress on appropriations legislation. The legislation in question is
the foreign assistance appropriations bill, the central piece of legislation by
which the Congress impacts U.S. foreign policy. The SOP describes to
Congressional leadership the various provisions of the bill that the President
either supports or opposes. It also indicates "the bottom line," whether, in the
case of the foreign operations bill, the Department of State recommends the
President sign, sign with changes, or veto the bill. After an initial lecture by
the instructor on the legislative process and U.S. foreign policy, the
instructor and the class will review official hearing documents and floor debate
on the foreign appropriations legislation for fiscal year 2006 (the last bill
for which final action was taken by Congress and the President). An actual SOP
(not for fiscal year 2006) will also be given to the class so that later in the
course they will be asked to write sections of it. The final classes will
involve a division of labor in which students will write their own SOP on the
fiscal year 2007 and present it to the President.

SIS 495H Hellmann US-Korea Relations at
the Dawn of the Asian Century

This Task Force will address current US-Korean relations
from several perspectives: security (US-Korea Alliance, Non-Proliferation, war
on terrorism, etc.), economics (bilateral free trade agreement, China as the new
economic superpower), diplomacy (Six Party Talks, Asian regionalism, etc.). This
is a threshold moment in the international relations of Northeast Asia and in
bilateral US-South Korean relations, and the TF will focus on selected critical
policy issues that will be evaluated both in an historical context and in terms
of the rapidly changing political economy of the region. The TF will have two
unique operational features: 1) interactive internet will be used to interface
with Korean and US specialists and Korean students; 2) an effort is underway to
develop a parallel TF involving students at Seoul National University to bring a
Korean perspective to the topic and to broaden the dimensions on which this TF
proceeds.